TMP begins national campaign to sell city
The Mersey Partnership, the tourist board for the Liverpool city region, has launched its latest national advertising campaign to promote short breaks in the city.
Liverpool's waterfront was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004 and TMP are using the site, along with Liverpool's cultural events programme, as its focus of the campaign.
The six-week campaign will be seen online for the first time today, Friday 21 May, and will feature in Saturday's Independent magazine and Seven magazine, and in the following day's Sunday Telegraph.
Further appearances will follow in supplements within other national titles including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, and The Daily Telegraph.
The campaign will also run in specialist travel publications Condé Nast Traveller, and BBC Lonely Planet, amongst others.
In addition to print advertising, the campaign will also be featured on a number of poster sites at London Underground stations.
The artwork features a panoramic image of Liverpool's waterfront and also many of the city's landmarks and cultural venues, including the Liver Building, Port of Liverpool Building, and Cunard Building, which are known as the city's Three Graces, Museum of Liverpool, Albert Dock, Metropolitan Cathedral, and Liverpool Cathedral.
The advertisement also highlights forthcoming events appearing at Tate Liverpool, as well as other events such as the Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's Mahler Edition and the John Lennon tribute season.
TMP said that following the summer 2009 campaign it resulted in 270,000 unique users to its consumer website, which was almost 76,000 more than in 2007 and just 1% fewer than in Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture 2008.
TMP added that the figures also show that on the first Monday after the second campaign appeared in national weekend titles, an additional 2,000 users visited the website in the space of just five hours as compared to the previous Monday.
Lorraine Rogers, TMP chief executive, said: "In Liverpool city region, we are very fortunate that we have a very strong product to sell at both national and international level – which in turn needs a striking visual to capture people's imaginations and encourage them to visit this thriving destination.
"Culture remains very high on the agenda during the summer of 2010 and beyond, with high-profile events including a major Picasso exhibition at Tate Liverpool and Liverpool Biennial. These two major shows will be enhanced by the vast range of exhibitions and attractions being staged by cultural organisations throughout the year.
"Previous TMP marketing campaigns have proved very successful in raising awareness of what the city region has to offer and generating extra visits and extra business for the destination."
Nigel Dove, director of marketing at the North West Development Agency, added: "Liverpool's cultural offer is one of the best; it boasts an inspiring range of museums, galleries and theatres, not to mention a fantastic programme of events throughout the year.
"This eye-catching campaign captures some of that vibrancy, and will spread the word far and wide. There are some world-class events happening in Liverpool this year and this campaign will encourage more people to come and enjoy them. It will also help to boost the city region's growing visitor economy."
- For more details on the events planned in the city visit The Mersey Partnership consumer website
